Alright, so I've been working on making a detective character for an upcoming Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign to be run by my wife. As the groups resident PC-optimizer I'm looking not to overshadow the rest of the party in building this character, so I've been looking at the rogue class to keep me from going crazy and making it too powerful. My goals in doing so were to see if I could make a more nonlethal-based, dirty-fighting build to fit with the character's personality as a streetwise detective and policeman. Well, I am here to tell you that after scouring the SRD, I have not been disappointed. Be prepared, wall of text ahead.
Now, the rogue as a class suffers from a myriad of problems, but among them are the following:
1. high potential damage per hit from sneak attack, but not enough BaB and no other steroid to help them hit with such attacks
2. situational applicability of sneak attack and resulting huge variance in performance as a combatant
3. generally dependent on TWF to maximize SA output while also not really being able to afford the huge feat tax involved or the cost of enchanting two weapons.
4. generally low AC due to light armor + no room for shields
Now, the biggest problem with the rogue to-hit to me seems to be that they are meant to rely on opponents being denied dexterity bonuses, which is a condition that is only rarely met and which the rogue has few if any tools to bring about. The rogue's damage and attacks are both therefore incredibly dependent on getting foes flat-footed (or effectively flat-footed), which is a difficult prospect indeed for a rogue. Feinting is an old way of achieving for this, but unfortunately suffers from the rogue's poor BaB and lack of steroid. What the rogue needs is a way to do some sort of combat maneuver or similar that will make an opponent vulnerable and actually has a chance of success. Well, there's one other combat maneuver that can cause an opponent to lose their Dex bonus, and that's Dirty Trick. Now this too suffers from the same issue that Feint does on a rogue, namely that they simply don't have any way of making it hit often at all...or do they?
Enter the Skulking Slayer. This is a half-orc archetype for rogues that provides the rogue with a very interesting mechanic, namely the ability to sacrifice their sneak attack damage to instead gain a bonus on steal maneuvers equal to 1&1/2 their SA dice or on, you guessed it, Dirty Trick equal to their SA dice. So there we have a steroid! Of ten at level 20, hmm, not really so great anymore. But wait, there's more! The feat Surprise Maneuver from the Advanced Class Guide lets us add our sneak attack dice as well, and what's more the two stack, as Sneaky Maneuvers lets us add our dice as a bonus whether or not we actually make a sneak attack or roll our dice as part of the attack. So now we have a +20 to Dirty Trick or a +25 to Steal at level 20 or a +10/+12 at level 10, not bad. If we combine this with the Scout Archetype, we could be charging into people and blinding them reliably throughout our leveling.
Alright, so this rogue can now blind people halfway effectively, but he still has the problem of damage. First of all, if this guy is charging people to get his dirty trick bonuses off, then he has no iterative attacks on the charge , and wont get any in any case until level 8 if he's not investing all his feats in two weapon fighting, right? Here to help us solve that issue (and help a bit with the AC) is the Snakebite Striker Brawler. A two level dip in this class will net us another sneak attack die, brawler's flurry, a bonus feat, IUS, and +2 BaB. IUS doesn't seem particularly important here though, as after all as a skulking slayer we will be always wielding a two-hander to take advantage of those d8 sneak attack rolls, right? Well, that's an option, to occupy both hands for some extra strength damage and 1 bonus damage per SA die, orrrrrrrrr we could put something else in that off-hand, like say a Burglar's Buckler, which adds to our low AC and to our dirty tricks. Now in our main hand we equip brass knuckles. Why, you ask? For nonlethal shenanigans, of course! We will get to that later, however, right now we still have the problem of having to move at least ten feet per round before getting our free sneak attacks/dirty tricks, and we need to be full-attacking to really get our damage going post-blind.
There are two ways that I've been able to find to sidestep this problem. The first of these is Jaunt Boots, which lets us move 15ft in a 5ft step 3/day. Not bad, but not great either. What we really want is an unassuming little Combat Performance feat called Mocking Dance, which lets us move an extra five feet as part of a swift action performance check (or our full speed if we want to provoke AoOs), letting us use a swift action each round to activate our scout sneak attack, and if we want to do some further feat investment we can pair it with dramatic display and masterful display for a +2 to all our attacks to boot or heroic display for a free intimidate check.
Now to the reason why we got unarmed strike: nonlethal damage without having to spend another feat, and some AC bonuses to boot! First off, we have brawler's flurry now, so we can use our offhand for a shield, beefing ourselves up a bit. I'm sure that by now everyone knows the value of the sap adept and master feats in really ramping up SA damage, but there are some interesting synergies that Sap Master has in particular with other aspects of the rogue. Now, what Sap Master does is double sneak attack dice when sneak attacking and dealing nonlethal damage. Unfortunately by RAW this doesn't stack with Underhanded Maneuvers or Surprise Manuevers. However, there happens to be a particular two rogue talents that benefit from this: Offensive Defense and Harrow Strike. That's right, you could at level 10 be getting +10 dodge AC for a successful sneak attack, or do 10 random ability damage instead of SA damage. Since we are unarmed, we can also throw knockout artist on top of the sap feats for another +1 damage per SA dice (doubled by sap master), and can also take enforcer for some free intimidate checks that would work well with performance combat feats or the Shatter Defenses feat. In fact, with shatter defenses and a successful intimidate check, we wouldn't even need to dirty trick to get the flat footed condition.
So, after all of this, we will have a rogue who can do the following, provided feat allowance and assuming liberal use of rogue talents to take said feats:
2d6+6 nonlethal SA per 2 levels
2.5x SA dice to steal, 2x to dirty trick, 1x to other
+1/SA dice to AC on SA hit (so, 1/level)
guaranteed first attack SA + full attack for swift action so long as we have space to move each round
free intimidate checks on hit
extra attack from brawler's flurry, ability to wear buckler without sacrificing dpr
shaken enemies are flat footed with shatter defenses, so we can make enemies who cant be blinded shaken, and ones who cant be shaken blinded for sneak attacks all the time!
still low BaB. dramatic display helps a tiny bit, but im a theorycrafter, not a miracle worker.
Does it make the rogue suddenly the best class ever? Eh, not quite. I like this build though, and look forward to being able to contribute to my party without being overbearing, and while also feeding my inner minmaxer.
Here's a Sample Feat/talent build at level 10:
Human Skulking Slayer Scout 8/Snakebite Striker 2
starting stats (20pt buy):
STR: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 14
Int: 13
Wis: 10
Cha: 10
Rogue 1: Racial Heritage: Half-Orc 1d6 SA, Combat Expertise, underhanded maneuvers, Pass for Human
Rogue 2: Offensive Defense
Rogue 3: 2d6 SA, Sap Adept, Bold Strike
Snakebite Striker 1: 3d6 SA, IUS
Snakebite 2: Flurry, Improved Dirty Trick, Surprise Manuever
Rogue 4: Weapon Training Trick: unarmed strike, Scout's Charge
Rogue 5: SA 4d6, Dazzling Display
Rogue 6: Combat trick: Mocking Dance, Shifty, Combat Swipe (bonus from human fcb)
Rogue 7: SA 5d6, Performance Combatant
Rogue 8: Skirmisher, Strong Impression
Replace 3 levels of Rogue with Bounty Hunter Slayer instead. You only lose out on 1 SA, but the Bounty Hunter's dirty tricking is a lot better than the Skulking Slayer version of it. Also has more BAB. This also leaves you open to take other Rogue archetypes.
EDIT: if you want to go for mocking dance, get a whip (and proficiency). You can move anywhere as long as you don't threaten; and whips don't threaten at 15, but can attack at 15.
Hmm, that would enable the Sap Master feat to interact with the Bounty Hunter's dirty trick, as it does damage, but would also delay the scout 's skirmish ability considerably, I'm not sure if that tradeoff is worth it. The idea with mocking dance was to move 5' out with the swift action, and take a 5ft step back in.
Scout is what lets you actually have sufficient bonuses to get that blind off in the first place, though.
If you're just looking for being awesome at combat maneuvers, it's hard to beat a strength surged invulnerable barbarian. Using cords of stubborn resolve they can rage cycle from 6th level onwards without taking any non-lethal damage so an 11th level barb is looking at +14 (or more with furious/courageous enchantments) to their maneuvers while raging, on top of already being a full BAB class.
But yes, rogues can actually be pretty good maneuver specialists and if built right can get some lovely pay-offs from sneak attacks.